The Colorado State University Plant Diagnostic Clinic blog serves as an information resource on disease and insect problems or questions that we see in the clinic or get asked frequently.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Update on 2008 wheat virus survey

Last week, the blog mentioned the wheat virus survey from 2008. http://www.apsnet.org/online/feature/virus/ is the url for the entire article, but I thought I would post a bit of the pertinent data here. "A total of 754 wheat samples were collected in the nine Great Plains states during the 2008 survey (Table 1). Due to various factors a small number of the samples were not tested for all five viruses. Therefore, results were standardized and presented as the percentage of the plant samples tested for each virus. The number of samples from each state varied from 21 to 307 (Table 1). The predominant virus detected in each state was WSMV, and this virus was detected in 47% of the plant samples (Table 1). WMoV (19%) and TriMV (17%) were the second and third most commonly detected viruses (Table 1). The aphid-transmitted viruses BYDV-PAV (7%) and CYDV-RPV (2%) were infrequently detected compared to the mite-transmitted viruses. Co-infection of a single plant by WSMV plus WMoV (13%) or WSMV plus TriMV (13%) was the most common co-infection detected. Five percent of samples were co-infected by all three mite-transmitted viruses and only 0.4% of samples were co-infected by both aphid-transmitted viruses." The table referenced is available at the url previously listed. Hopefully by next spring, we should have the data from 2009 compiled and ready for publication. New Service at the Diagnostic ClinicFor all those interested in having plants or soil tested for herbicide damage, I have found a lab that can test for almost any type of chemistry. The one thing needed is that we need to know what chemistry to test for as they don't have a 'chemical screen'. It is rather expensive for this testing (and they only test for one chemistry at a time), but if you or your client needs this information, it may be worth the cost in order to have a definitive answer. Here at the diagnostic clinic, we can ship your sample to the testing lab, invoice you or your client for the cost of testing and shipping and forward the report(s) to either you or your client. If you have any comments or would like answers to frequently asked questions, please feel free to leave a message. We'll try to get you an answer.